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Friday, April 04, 2008

Ken's secret son is 15 and living in London

Ken Livingstone has a secret son who is a happy and successful 15-year-old schoolboy who regularly sees his father, the Standard can reveal.

The Evening Standard has known for some years about the Mayor's son and two daughters from another, earlier relationship, but chose not to publish the story.

Now Mr Livingstone has himself disclosed the fact that he has five children, and not two as everyone supposed.

The existence of his three secret children emerged last night in a BBC London report. It claimed that the Mayor had been "an involved father" to all of them and is in regular contact.

When the revelations were put to him, he acknowledged that Emma Beal and others close to him knew of his other children.

After the birth of his first child with his current partner, Ms Beal, in 2002, Mr Livingstone made no move to correct the widespread report that it was his first child. While Londoners believed this to be the case - and congratulated the mayor on becoming a father for the first time at the age of 57 - close friends knew the truth.

They also knew that Mr Livingstone was extremely touchy about his two secret families. "This has always been a big no-no with Ken," one said. "You just don't go there."

But now he has revealed the existence of his three unknown children, apparently because the fact was about to be published in a new biography.His daughters are grown up and were born during a relationship that pre-dated his high-profile political career. But his son, who is 16 this year, was born while he was MP for Brent East, with a schoolteacher, now in her 50s. She lives in north London with the boy and he attends a local school.Mr Livingstone has two children with Ms Beal, Tom, five and fouryearold Mia.

Some months ago, the Evening Standard received a letter from a person who said they had a child at the same school and that it was well-known among staff and pupils that the boy was Ken Livingstone's son, but the mayor had never publicly acknowledged him. In fact the Mayor has been involved in the boy's life since his birth.

It seems he would have preferred to keep the existence of his three unknown children a secret, but he was asked about them by Andrew Hosken, the BBC journalist and author whose new biography of the mayor is due out soon.

Hosken told the Standard: "During one of my meetings with Ken at City Hall I raised the question of the children."Mr Livingstone sought to shrug off the issue with a return to the mayoral campaign trail today.

He was today preparing to stage an event in Holloway warning Londoners not to vote for the far-right British National Party in the coming City Hall elections.